The backseat is the throne of the schoolbus, where bullies and the popular preside over the meek – or at least anyone who dares sport the wrong attitude, hair, or mobile phone. This social staple is the subject of The We and the I, Michel Gondry's polemic against the wisdom of the herd, which opened the director's fortnight at the Cannes film festival.

The plot – loose as it is – follows Teresa (Teresa L Rivera), who climbs aboard a bus taking a winding route through the Bronx to be reinitiated into her pack after a mysterious three-month absence. There's a semi-boyfriend to placate, his braggish mates to stand down. She's lost her place on the backseat and it must be won back. Further down the bus, micro-dramas play themselves out in rounds of bitching and back-stabbing. The atmosphere is as stifling as you'd expect from an extended journey with a group of rowdy teenagers.

Gondry, a 49-year-old Frenchman, makes a surprisingly successful go of following the babble and switch of young, fast-talking Bronxites. Most of the cast are non-professional actors recruited from a local after-school programme. The inexperience shows, but their stories – Laidy (Lady Chen Carrasco) struggles to organise a world-changing sweet-16 party, sleazy Jonathan (Jonathan Ortiz) connects with a beautiful girl riding her bike outside the bus – are well-developed, if simplistic. Gondry's argument – that pack mentality crushes individual expression – follows a similarly predictable route, but there's enough of his signature playfulness (especially in the use of mobile-phone footage to present flashbacks) to keep the journey entertaining.

Best of all is the limited time we spend with the kids who rarely stand out, the fringe elements that toe the line for survival, but have enough spark to speak up when the bullies go too far. It's in these moments of near-revolt – and their subsequent, inevitable quashing – that Gondry's message is clearest. All but the bravest individualist bows to the throne at the back of the bus. The trick is in knowing how low to dip.